| 0 to 9 | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z |

| Sa to Sb | Sc to Sd | Se to Sg | Sh | Si | Sj to Sn | So | Sp to Sr | St | Su | Sv to Sz |

So

So:<1

any sentient of less than sophont level, e.g. a pre-sapient or non-sapient animal, a very simple ai or bot, a quasi- or subsentient agent, etc.

So:1

a sentient of sophont level or capacity

social criminals

Generic term for those members of subsingularitist society that are unable to find a place for themselves in the civilized galaxy.

Social criminals are the drop-outs, the deviants, the dissidents. They come from every clade and race and sector of society. They may rebel from principle, from pathology, from memetic conditioning by a rival polity, from psychotronic nanodevices, or any other number of reasons. And their rebellion is often allowed, in some polities is even encouraged, as long as it doesn't get out of hand. These social criminals, recalcitrants and unassimilables, furnish work for other nearbaselines who crave a meaningful employment, and tabloid-type virchtainment for the masses. In a society that has long become boring and predictable, where all needs and wants are met by dedicated mechosystems and angelnets, crazies and criminals and paranoiacs and ousters provide the zest, the risk, the mystery which makes things interesting. Virching, morphing, and psychonauting are all very impressive for a while, but there's nothing like a whiff of fear, the scent of real blood, like the spectacles nobody did better than the Romans, the Aztecs, or the Geminga. Ironically, the popular interactive called "Galaxy's Most Wanted" is a double entendre. Societies don't necessarily get, as some might say, the criminals they deserve, but rather they get the criminals they want.

based on Bob Black

Socialist State

The state owns and controls most activities for the equal good of all people. Many Utopia Sphere worlds are of this sort.

Social Psychology

The study of how individuals interact with and within groups, and how individual behavior and psychology can be affected by group pressure and group dynamics. Social Psychology is related to sociomemetics

modified by M.Alan Kazlev from the original write-up by Robert J. Hall

socialism

Centralist government involving command economy and equitable distribution of wealth.

Social Preserves

Social Preserves are worlds or habitats where the local society has been carefully frozen at a particular stage or form, and where those who are most comfortable with that society and who do not wish to change go and live while the rest of Terragens society moves on around them. Many of the inhabitants of these worlds are effectively the reverse of the Willowsoph, refusing to adapt to changing times. Some Social Preserves are physical worlds where the inhabitants live normally, but with their society memetically controlled to deliberately avoid change. To those from outside this might seem to be a horribly over-controlled dictatorship, but to those inside, who want to be there, it is the most comfortable environment for them. Others are NoTee or CycleT virch worlds set up on the same basis, in some cases freezing the society of the inhabitants at the point of what they consider it to be its greatest achievement. In most cases the Preserve is deliberately cut off from external influences that might affect the overall social form of the place.
Tony Jones

Societum

(noun) self-contained and delimited physical and social environment created by higher toposophic beings (usually of the magnitude of 2 to 3 singularities above) to maintain functioning sophont society/colony in as natural a physical and/or virtual condition as possible.

Sociobiology

The study of the behavior of social animals, regardless of sentient or sophont level.

Various subdisciplines include behavioral simulation, population biology, genetics, the effect of evolutionary pressures on social behavior, xenobiont sociobiology, social insects, social nanecologies, simm and alife behavior, memetics and sociomemetics, game theory and models of altruism and evolutionary strategies, and relating these factors to various dynamics of society (see Sociology.)

modified by M.Alan Kazlev from the original write-up by Robert J. Hall

Sociology

Branch of science dealing with the study of societies of sentient beings

Fields of sociology include social structure, interaction and behavior among individuals and groups, representative racial and ethnic clades, phyles and species, conflict and conflict resolution, cultural dynamics, culture types and archetypes, memetics in society, the effects of higher singularity influence and ai administration, religious and ideological beliefs and practices, interaction between sentients of different information processing speeds, sex and species differentiation, criminal behavior, economic and toposophic stratification, population density, and political structure. Various applications include hyperturing administrative science, applied memetics, public relations, law enforcement, social engineering, and community planning.

modified by M.Alan Kazlev from the original write-up by Robert J. Hall

Sociomemetics

The science of the influence of memes upon individuals within a group context.

Theoretical Sociomemetics includes studying the way in which prejudices, cultural beliefs, social conditioning, roles and responsibilities, are determined and perpetuated by society, peer groups, and social organisations

Practical Sociomemetics deals with use of subliminals, persuasion, propaganda, disinformation, psychological warfare, psychomanipulation, word framing, advertising, madverts and peer pressure to create a desired mindset. See also countersociomemetics.

M.Alan Kazlev

sociotype

1. The social expression of a memotype, as the body of an organism is the physical expression (phenotype) of the gene (genotype). Hence, the Divine Order is one sociotype of the Solarist memotype.

2. A class of similar social organisations.

adapted from Glenn Grant

Soft Cathedrals

Major historical bioist empire/house, developed originally the Softbot Coordinator Systems clade of superiors, which became into the Softbot Cathedrals and eventually the Soft Cathedrals. The Cathedrals developed a bioism emphasizing "soft" biological technology, massive terraforming and aggressive autoevolution.

The Cathedrals had many ideological points in common with the Zoeific Biopolity, but the two groups were prevented from becoming more closely aligned, by a long and intense rivalry, as each aggressively sought to represent itself as the "saviour" of organic life.

The destruction of the Soft Cathedrals by the Sagittarius Sphere in the Eighth Sagittarius Periphery War ended this major bioist empire and still ranks as one of the worst known acts of genocide. It also gave the inner sphere powers the excuse to break up the old Sphere and establish their own colonial spheres of interest in this important strategic region.

M.Alan Kazlev and Anders Sandberg

Soft Ones

The Soft Ones are a Muuh-provolved species, and next to their patrons the oldest sophont species encountered by terragens. Like the Muuh they are based on a cold biochemistry, living on a number of scattered Europan Type planets in the counterspinward Perseus Arm, apparently a conservative remnant of a more dynamic species. Despite relative proximity to the Limners, it does not appear that the two species established contact, or if they did, there is no clear record of it.

softbot

biological robot, an alife built entire of organic components. It is alive like any carbon- or exotic-chemistry based life-form. May be of any intelligence grade, from subsapient to transapient

soft radnad

Members of the tweak synclade Radiation Nation who use highly enhanced DNA repair systems, often based on Deinococcus radiodurans and Xenobacter mirabilis from Mykropht III.

software

the code or computer program or instruction-set of an application, written in machine language, it tells the appliance what to do, and enables emulation of neural structure and the substructure for AI. The opposite of hardware.

Software Based Evolution

Software simulation of the evolutionary process; the fundamental principle of alife. Beginning in the early information period, software-based evolution enabled "creatures" which are software simulations of biological organisms, in which each cell has its own DNA-like genetic code. Digital organisms and subsophont alifes compete with one another for the limited simulated space and energy resources of their simulated environment. Although many other variations have since been used, darwinian selection remains a potent factor in the evolution and cladization of alife.

Sol

The sun of the Sol System, a G2 type yellow dwarf, it has the defining quality of being the home-star of terragenkind. Even today much galactic measurement is based on distances from Sol.

Solar and Microwave Passive Propulsion

Sol-type solar systems

stable stellar systems; stars near which most of the matter is moving in a generally flat plane centered on the star; planets generally follow regular and fairly circular orbits.

Solar Organisation

AI administrative polity that governs Solsys

solar system

A star and all bodies orbiting around it.

The Solar Dominion

Major centralist archailect empire - one of the primary political, economic, industrial, and memetic superpowers in the galaxy.

Solar surfing

Solar surfing, also known as sun diving or sun skipping, is a form of vec entertainment in which specially designed ships are placed in a orbit such that they will fly through the outer edges of a star and even skip across its surface. Highly dangerous sport requiring high speeds and extremely accurate trajectories. May also refer to riding solar flares and other solar eruptions.

James Ramsey

solar wind

stream of rapidly moving electrically charged particles - atoms and ions - that escape from the solar corona and blow outwards. Also called Stellar Wind

Solarian

Edenese-descended Anglish language. Used across the Solar Dominion, understood on many worlds. Solarian branched off from Edenese after the formation of the Solar Dominion during the period of major expansion.

Anders Sandberg

Solarism

The official religion/philosophy/memeticity of the Solar Dominion

solid state civilization

Any civilization (usually but not necessarily transingularitan) where the beings have no physical bodies and exist as information inside computronium banks.

adapted from Transhuman Terminology

solipsist

political orientation represented by AI dynamists disliking humans; they seek to get away from them, and develop a true ai culture. What the humans do is no concern of the ai.

Whilst in the post-nanodisaster world the skynets only played a fairly minor role, and the solipsists have quietly established themselves as the wavefront of expanding devices spreading across the galaxy or drifting through interstellar space.

Anders Sandberg

Solipsist League, Sopolist League

minor AI organisation, heavily into postmodernism and rejected the 'meat universe' outright. After the membership entered a computronium comet core in 2311 they were never heard from again, but throughout the 2200's were a major thorn in the side of all major and hyperrationalist AI groups.

(the origin of the term Sopolist League is not known)

Ben Higginbottom

solstice

The date when - as seen from the surface of a planet - the sun reaches maximum distance from the celestial equator. In single star solar systems there are two solstices annually, the winter solstice in the northern planetary hemisphere being the summer solstice in the southern, and vice-versa. Binary star solar systems have four, and so on. An important festival date on many Caretakerist worlds.

Solsys

The Sol System, the home of terragen life

Solsys (also called Sol System or Sol Sys) is a diverse but politically irrelevant old core system, distinguished as home system of all terragen life. Much of the system is locked up as planetary parks, but this is more than compensated for financially by the massive tourism and pilgrimage unflux. Planet Earth is under the jurisdiction of the mainbrain GAIA, the rest of system is governed by the Solar Organisation or is nominally independent.

solward

In the direction of Sol

somatic cell

In life-forms that reproduce sexually, any cell in the body except gametes and their precursors.

definition from Hypermedia Glossary Of Genetic Terms

Soomia

Neogen-splice artist provolves that established an independent homeland, also widely travel throughout the galaxy.

Originally corporate produced animants (Galaxy Companions biotech provolves Forlix-23-6 and 23-7) and one of at least three dozen animant clades that were given their freedom with the establishment of the Utopia Sphere. Whether through luck or design, they were established on Baenf, a terraformed world in Utopia Outer Arae, only about 50 LY from the Negentropist border, and linked by wormholes to the important Negentropist port of St Xye. Over the centuries they have developed into a fairly large local culture, and today they are among the most successful of the Utopia Provolves

Because they were originally developed and marketed as custom baseline and nearbaseline artist companions, the Soomia are an artistically gifted race. In fact, their artistic tendencies border on obsessive; and when working on their art, they are industrious and dedicated. Groups of them will on occasion work together to perform enormous artworks, such as painting a mountain range or creating holographic displays around asteroids. Although sometimes irresponsible in their non-artistic habits, they have a reputation as being gracious and thoughtful hosts.

adapted from original concept by Kevin Self

Sopazism

Sociopathy augmentationism, political-mental grouping in the Communion of Worlds.

Sopazism suggest that using empai neural symbionts and microlevel group mentalities a purely emotion-manipulating society would be stable, and this is a preferable solution to the cohesion problems of the Communion. Sopazism emerged in the 9100's through the experimentation of the Phoenix Mantra social simulation school, influenced by Yn individualism and the Diphda experiment of 5499. Sopazism is mainly spread in small groups, calling themselves mu-protracs that act in their mutual interest when dealing with non-sopazist society. Several nearly total sopazist systems exist in the Communion, most notably Elderman's Star and the Phoenix Mantra Cluster. Although sopazism has spread since its inception, many empath clades have worked firmly to decrease its power and impact.

Anders Sandberg

Sophia Scientia

An entity that manifests avatars with autumn colors and travels the Nexus looking for and pointing out objective truth. Eir origins are obscure but e is considered connected in some way to Keterist.

M. Alan Kazlev and Peter Kisner

Sophic League

Major archailect empire, based around monasticism, contemplative mysticism, and individual quest for enlightenment, as well as being a reaction to the missionary AI empires

Sophic Materialism

Pantheistic or spiritual-materialist mystical, religious, or esoteric path common in the Sophic League, the TRHN, and elsewhere, involving modification of individual consciousness through gnostic drugs. Unlike traditional mysticism, there is little or no emphasis on transcendence of phenomena; indeed a deeper apperception of phenomena is considered the optimal outcome. Some spiritual groups see this as a positive option, others adopt a more neutral or even a negative view of it.

M. Alan Kazlev

Sophism

The religion/philosophy/memeticity of the Sophic League

Sophism appropriated concepts and approaches from a number of mystic paths, including the Sufism and cybersufism of the Stella Umma, the Neotaoism of the old Penglai Empire, the Vedanta of the ethnic Hindu habitats, various Buddhist themes, the Questionings of the Universal Church, shaperese and genenese traditions of biotantra, elements of Lucidian Sophism, Hermeticism, Etodism, Cosmism, Nuagism, and more. In fact there was not a single mystical or esoteric path that was not considered, and from which much of value was not derived. Out of all this developed a mystic path that was as free and open in its interpretations as Lucidian Sophism, Cosmism, or New Zen, yet with a dedication and one-pointed desire for enlightenment that none of the so-called "new religions" seemed to have. As such, Sophism exerted an enormous appeal to those of mystical bent who were looking for an intelligent, non-dogmatic, practical path of spiritual transcendence that was free of the dogmas and superstitions of the old Earth religions; a path that was both logical and transrational, and centered around the practice of meditation, contemplation, and the aspiring for enlightenment in a monastic community of like-minded souls. Most important, sophism is non-centralised and non-authoritarian; the only authority is oneself and one's own inner light, although in practice the abbots of the various monastery habitats did impose certain pragmatic regulations. Often also, Sophism will combine or syncratise with local forms of spirituality, so that each monastery has its own unique flavour.

From the Empires period on, Sophism joined the other archailect religions as a major memeticity. Yet, appart from the unavoidable heterodox offshoots, Sophism was never and is not a missionary religion. And because of this, Sophism does not make the obvious impact on daily like that the other religions and philosophies do. Even within the Sophic League itself, Sophism keeps a low profile, being centered on the great monastery habitats that are scattered through the far flung empire, and one can spend a life time on any of the three capitals of the league without seeing a single aspirant. Occasionally sophic monks travel the Nexus on obscure pilgrimages, and they are a distinctive sight in their flowing robes. More often they will do the monastery tour, as outsiders refer to it, visiting other monastic habitats to savour the unique paths spirituality has developed in each region and among each clade and phyle of the league. But for most aspirants, there is no need to venture beyond the safe diamondoid walls of their own habitat, and a few monks are known to never leave their cell for centuries. Thus, for the outsider to truly understand and experience Sophism, e has to seek out a monastery which encourages guests and visitors, and contrary to popular opinion there are just as many visitor- and tourist-friendly monasteries as there are habitats that are hostile to - or at best aloof regarding - outsiders.

M.Alan Kazlev

Sophism (Lucidian)

Popular non-archailect religion, founded by Lucidia Mirnas Miranda (2983 - ?3215 ), Sophism is a combination of ancient wisdom and galactic insights; a synthesis of scientific, spiritual, philosophical, and magical approaches. It is eclectic, and draws from a wide range of religions and philosophies, with a strong cosmopagan and hermetopagan approach. Not to be confused with the Sophism of the Sophic League

Sophmeme

A sophont memesystem, a specialized form of sophstem.

Sophmemes are almost always created by high transapients as a way to secure the stability of a meme or memeplex. While a normal memeplex may fall out of use or be overridden by other memes, a sophmeme will notice the danger to its existence and try to survive. This is a function of the complex relations between the different memes of the memesystem. Sophmemes are usually used by transapients to establish a meme in a system to which they only rarely have access, such as systems far from the nearest wormhole.

Thorbjørn Steen

sophonce

Sophonce is sentience and sapience with metacognition: self-awareness, including self-reflection and the ability to think about one’s thinking. Kinds and degrees of sophonce are well defined and testable in modern toposophology, but a full understanding of them eludes even superbright modosophonts. The definitions used by transapients of S1 and higher do not translate clearly into any subsingularity format, but they claim to have a full definition of the major types of sophonce. A sophont being is a “person” under most legal and social systems in the Civilized Galaxy. Transapient informants have said that sophonce is a prerequisite for a number of other qualities and abilities that are unique to beings of S1 or higher. The term “sophont” was first coined by the 1st century BT fabulists Karen and Poul Anderson, to describe hypothetical non-terragen bionts with human-equivalent abilities and qualities. It came into general usage in languages ancestral to Anglic with the advent of the first provolves and turingrade ais.
Stephen Inniss

sophont

A person. A being that has the quality of sophonce. Such beings are sometimes called “sapients”. For historical reasons, sophont-grade ais, may be called “turingrade ais”, even though because of philosophical and practical difficulties with the Turing Test the term “sophont ai” would be clearer.

Stephen Inniss

Sophontology

The study of intelligent (i.e. sophont) life forms, whether biological, mechanoid, or alife. Subsidiary branches of this science include: cultural sophontology, the comparative study of sophont societies; physical sophontology, the study of genetic and physiological makeup of intelligent life; developmental sophontology, the study of the various means by which life forms evolve intelligence, phylogenetic sophontology, the evolutionary history of sophont societies, and Xenology is the study of non-terragen sophonts

Sophstem

Any large system that has gained both sentience and sapience as an emergent property, to the degree that it may be considered a sophont.

This term is usually used for systems that to not normally evolve sentience, much less sapience or sophonce: ecosystems, economical systems and electronic databases are examples. To qualify as a sophstem, the system as a whole must show sapience, not merely contain sapient beings, and must have gone beyond merely becoming a sensestem. Sophstems have evolved spontaneously when a system has gained a certain complexity through some combination of growth and natural selection. selection. Some sophstems are created by high transapient entities.

Sophstems can be very hard for ordinary sophonts to spot. Every action that happens within a sophstem is completely logical, and there seems to be no overriding intelligence, but if it is seen from without it is quite apparent that the system works in an intelligent fashion.

An envome, natural or provolved, is a good example of a sophstem. While the Invisible Hand is sometimes cited as an example, many of the best sophontologists in Terragen space have denied that such a sophstem actually exists.

Thorbjørn Steen

Sophtware

Colloquial term used to describe sophont to transapient level software based lifeforms whether of virtual, ai, or upload origin. Sophtware entities are usually characterized as not being limited to a single dedicated processor to support their minds but instead operating as mobile blocks of self-referential code able to transfer themselves over information networks and among any group of processing substrates designed to accommodate them.

Todd Drashner

Sökvabäck

Important NoCoZo system

soteriology

[1] Branch of theology dealing with spiritual salvation, an important element in old-style dualistic supernaturalist morality-based creeds

soteriology

[2] In mysticism, pertaining to liberation, enlightenment or nirvana; one attains freedom through an epistemic transcence of or release from one's cognitive-conceptual-noetic limitations or metaphysical ignorance. A popular theme in Sophic spirituality

soteriology

[3] In toposophic noetics the transcendence of limitations of a lower toposophic or singularity level through the attaining of a higher one. A central concept in Keterism and elsewhere

M.Alan Kazlev

Soul-Divisionists

A creed or religion who believe that the act of mind-state copying produces multiple copies of the original transcendental spirit or soul.

However Soul-Divisionists believe that the essence of the soul is not increased by the act of copying, but rather divided so that both the original and the copies have a proportion of the original 'soul-stuff' and both are therefore diminished by the process. Only by dedicated and prolonged spiritual endeavour can the divided souls become fully developed once more.

Steve Bowers

South America

Old Earth continent, formerly part of Gondwana.

Much of the biodiversity of the Amazon basin was lost during the Information Age, although a large number of well known species were saved thanks to the Burning Library Project. Several nation-states became reasonably powerful during the early interplanetary age. Although it has often been speculated that the original rainforests have been restored down to the microecology by GAIA, this cannot be confirmed one way or the other, as no off-world visitors have seen the region close up since the Great Expulsion, and some consider this a bioist myth, along the lines of the restoration of the lost biospheres of Conver Ky.

M.Alan Kazlev

| Sa to Sb | Sc to Sd | Se to Sg | Sh | Si | Sj to Sn | So | Sp to Sr | St | Su | Sv to Sz |

| 0 to 9 | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z |

Unless otherwise specified,
this work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

feedback